


Equilibrium

by TheDarknessFactor



Series: The Scientific Implications of Two Sisters [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Force Ghosts, Gen, Mommy Issues, Sith Inquisitor Chapter Two, Taris, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8019454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarknessFactor/pseuds/TheDarknessFactor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The galaxy contains many mysteries.  For S'kora, the biggest one is how she's still alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> ACK GOD it's been about a million years since I've written anything. That's probably the longest hiatus I've ever had. And I mean ever.
> 
> I got back into SWTOR. So here's the next installment of TSIOTS. Enjoy!

S'kora slips out of bed at – if she had to guess – three in the morning, slipping on her plain tunic and pants, covering up the scars that Andronikos had been tracing only a few hours ago.

She catches a glimpse of herself in his mirror, noting how her skin is still, after one whole year of eating well, too close to her bones.  The yellow in her eyes burns fiercely in her reflection, and her hair is a complete mess.  For once, she doesn't bother to wrap her bangs up, instead opting for pushing them behind her ears and heading for the door.

It's her room, but S'kora dislikes meditating there anyway (just in case any more apparitions decide to pop up; Kallig had not been a most pleasant visitor).  She pauses in the doorway to ensure that her departure has not disturbed Andronikos in any way, and breathes out when she sees that he hasn't moved.

The insomnia returned after her confrontation with Zash; its cause is fairly obvious to S'kora, and yet here she is, doing nothing to stop it.  She had held onto some foolish fantasy that sleeping with Andronikos (and sharing her bed with him) would help with that somehow, but a few hours after falling asleep she found herself staring up at her ceiling, unable to rest. 

S'kora chooses the cargo hold this time.  The hum of the ship traveling through space is loudest here, but she finds the sound soothing.  She allows herself to sink deep into her rage, ignoring the bitter taste it leaves in her mouth, and lets the rest of the world fall away from her.  There is no Zash, no Thanaton, no reminders of her own weakness.

(She still doesn't understand how she isn't dead.)

The phantom pain of his lightning returns when that thought brushes her mind, and it's enough to jar her out of meditation.  She fights down the instinctive panic easily, and forces herself to stay relaxed when she senses a visitor in the doorway.

“I thought you were past this.”

S'kora stares back at Khem – no, at Zash – and says nothing. 

Zash sighs.  Her voice is distorted, has a dark edge to it that not even her true form possessed, but S'kora prefers it to the voice she knows.  “Apprentice, if you're going to attempt to go toe-to-toe with Thanaton, you should at least endeavor to be healthy.”

“You do realize that your right to call me ‘apprentice’ is somewhat lacking.”

Somehow, even in Khem's body, Zash manages to look amused.  “What would you have me call you, then?  I know that you wouldn't force anyone to call you ‘master’.  Not that I blame you for your abhorrence to that word.  And it makes you uncomfortable when I call you by your given name.”

S'kora knows that revealing this card is a mistake, but not giving it away would require her to actually care.  “Kallig will do.”

There's a brief pause before Zash laughs.

“Well, now it makes sense,” she muses.  “You were always happier when your errands involved the Dark Temple.”

S'kora resists the urge to point out that she's never happy.

“I wonder how Lord Kallig's descendants ended up destitute?”

S'kora remembers the feverish glint in her mother's eye during those last few months, and doesn't answer.  Noticing that it's nearly six, she gets up and pushes past Zash, heading to the galley to fix up some caf.

Zash follows her.  Of course.

“I never realized how quiet your ship would be,” she muses.  “I assumed, with the pirate around, that there would be some raucous display.”

“Andronikos is capable of maintaining a normal sleep schedule,” S'kora deadpans.  But Zash has a point - he's a man of few words, even when he's awake.  She never really noticed, preferring the quiet.  When they do converse, he's blunt and to-the-point, leaving little room for idle chatter.  It's one of the reasons why she likes him.

“Perhaps you ought to emulate him.”

“I'm curious as to where this concern for my well-being has come from,” S'kora says.  The caf scalds her tongue when she takes a sip.  “Planning another ritual already?”

At first there's no answer; S'kora continues to drink her caf, locking eyes with her former master, eyebrow raised in expectation of a response.  Zash is impossible to read (she always was), but her emotions are no longer a secret to S'kora.

She sneers.  “Don't tell me you _cared_.”

“Because someone who did what I did couldn't _possibly_ have compassion, I suppose.”

S’kora’s grip on her mug tightens.  She wonders how good it would feel to unleash the burning she feels on someone else, for once.  Someone who is truly deserving of it, who won't die from it.  She forces herself to relax; she rather likes the pristine state of the galley, and she would rather not ruin it.

Andronikos chooses that moment to walk in (fully clothed), still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  Wordlessly, S'kora pours him a second cup of caf and hands it to him; he takes it with a nod of thanks.

“You don't have any need to eat or drink, Zash,” S'kora says.  “Get out.”

Zash doesn't move.  “I do care,” she says.  A pounding in S'kora's head joins the burning in her blood.  “Make of that what you will.”

“You are in the body of a Dashade who is bound to my will,” S'kora intones, making sure that danger seeps into her voice.  “I suggest you obey.”

Zash bows her head, and exits the galley without another word.

“You doing okay?” Andronikos asks.  “You must've been up early.”

“As well as I've ever been,” she replies.  “It's not as though I haven't dealt with insomnia before.”

Andronikos digests this while he takes a sip of his own caf.  S'kora finishes hers and washes the mug, setting it on the drying rack.  “So what I got out of that,” he says after a moment, “Is that you feel like shavit.”

S'kora chokes back a laugh.  “That's not an inaccurate assessment.”

“I'm guessing your, uh…friend isn't helping with that.”

‘Friend' is so off the mark that S'kora doesn't even know how to respond to it – but then, what other title would he use?  He's conscientious of her adversity to referring to Zash as her master, and he seems a little weirded out by the whole two-minds-one-body thing.  She can't blame him for stumbling a bit over this, and she doesn't want to dwell on Zash right now.

“Last night was fun,” she says, giving him a small smile.

He doesn't protest the change in subject.  “Yeah, it was.”  He clears his throat.  “I'm, uh, up for doing it again.  If you want.”

S'kora glances down pointedly.  “Define ‘up for'.”

He just grins.

She puts on a show of considering it – tapping her chin with her finger, casting her eyes to the ceiling.  “…let me get back to you on that.”

He bows exaggeratedly.  “Of course, my lord.”

“Please don't call me that in bed.”

“You got it, Sith.”

* * *

 

The ghosts taking up residence in her mind are silent, for the most part.  But she always, always knows that they’re there.  Their hatred mixes with hers, and not well; sometimes, when she's fighting, she feels like she's going to explode with it.  Venting it out isn't always enough, and sometimes she feels like she's wrestling with a rancor.

S’kora can delude herself into believing that she hides it well, but she knows that every single person on this ship has some form of knowledge of her weakness.

Khem’s level of alertness will spike in the Force whenever she can feel Ergast or Andru stirring.  Zash’s emotions have always been impossible to pinpoint, but S’kora would be a fool if she believed that Zash didn’t know.  As for Andronikos… despite the fact that he is not Force-sensitive, he has a remarkable ability to figure out when something is wrong with her— though he never calls her out on it.

As they travel to Taris, their ship gliding through hyperspace in silence, S’kora begins to run through training exercises in the cargo hold— something she hasn’t dared to do before, for reasons that she can no longer think of.  She takes advantage of the range of motion that her saberstaff allows by using circular movements, never once becoming dizzy in spite of the fact that she hasn’t eaten in almost a day. 

She moves without effort, allowing the Force to guide her movements, sinking deeper and deeper into her own agitation until she’s drawing on not only her own deep-seated hatred, but that of her ethereal companions as well.

For a moment, she realizes that she could crush her entire ship with her fist.  For a moment, she’s tempted— desiring the rush of channeling such power.

It passes a moment later, and her movements slow until the hatred settles back into the vague heat in her blood.

She turns slowly to face Andronikos, who has been watching from the doorway for the last ten minutes.

“Almost couldn’t see you, Sith,” he says.

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”  S’kora clips her saberstaff to her belt.  “How long have I been down here?”

“’Bout three hours.  I wanted to let you know that we should be arriving at Taris by tomorrow.  We just have to get around some nebula first.”

“If that were all, you wouldn’t be down here.”

S’kora leans against her storage locker, folding her arms.  Her tunic and leg wraps are sticking to her skin, and both of her hair wraps have fallen off at some point during the exercise, leaving the strands to be thrown all over the place.  She makes a mental note of where the hair wraps fell, and reminds herself to retrieve them later.

Ergast and Andru seem to be sated, for the moment.

Andronikos grins.  “Well to be honest, I just wanted to watch.”

“Like what you saw?”

“’Like’ might not be the right word.”

S’kora smirks, but says nothing.  She _does_ feel good, after her workout— and she wouldn’t put it past Andronikos to somehow be aware of that, and to seek her out because of that.  For once, the dark side seems to feed her instead of hurting her.

“Well,” she says, sauntering towards him.  “I would very much like to engage in another sort of workout right now— but alas, I have three Tarisian ancient languages to learn before we arrive tomorrow.”

For Force’s sake, the man actually _pouts_.  It’s convincing, too.  Not to mention it makes his lips look particularly kissable.

“Stop that,” she admonishes.

He puts on his best innocent look— which, considering he’s a pirate, just makes him look even more suspicious— and says, “Stop what?”

S’kora elbows him.  “Stop pouting, or I’m not sharing my caf with you tomorrow morning, and we both know who always wakes up first.”  With that, she heads up to the conference room to do her work, making sure her hips are swinging on the way.

“Hey, come on,” he calls after her.  “You can’t hold caf over my head, that’s worse than all of the piracy I’ve committed—“

S’kora laughs.

* * *

 

The rot of Taris fills her nostrils, likely from the mold that coats the walls.  Still, her pack is currently carrying three tablets with various Sith inscriptions on them, so she’s pleased with her find and willing to put up with the bunker’s undesirable environment.

That is, until they’re suddenly swarmed by Rakghouls.

“Behind me, _now_ ,” she snarls.

There are Rakghouls on all sides, but S’kora reaches out with the Force and yanks Andronikos into a corner of the room, where she can shield him from the onslaught.  She knows that she doesn’t need to worry about Khem, but she yanks him over to her as well.  Her lightsaber is flashing through the air, dispatching Rakghouls as they attempt to pile onto her and the others.

The hatred rises within her again— hatred that is not her own.  A moment later, a storm is pouring from her fingertips.  She’s done this before, but this is different: this time, she can _feel_ the lightning arcing through diseased veins, vaporizing spinal fluid.

In only a few seconds, the Rakghoul pack is lying prone on the ground.  Smoke rises from their corpses.

S’kora breathes in, struggling to detach herself from the hatred.  Her hands still spark.

She's expecting the surge of exhaustion that follows, but not the sharp pain that strikes her right arm.  Feeling annoyed, she lifts her arm to inspect the wound.  The memory of a Rakghoul hanging off of it earlier comes back to her; she flung it into the wall.

S'kora doesn't bother to hide it as she turns towards Andronikos and Khem.  She sheathes her saberstaff on her hip before blood can drip onto the hilt.

Khem sniffs the air.  Apparently he can smell microbes now, because he says, “Little Sith carries disease.”

“Yes, thank you, I’m aware of that.”

Andronikos’ eyes travel to the teeth marks.  “Well, shavit.”

S’kora snorts and moves past him, further into the bunker.  She can no longer sense any immediate dangers, and concludes that the only nearby Rakghouls are outside.  She draws from her core of power and Force-pushes a door open, which leads to the tablet she’s been hoping to find.

“Apprentice, this is no laughing matter.”

S’kora will _not_ whine ‘go away’ like a petulant child.  She half-turns, eyeing Zash with little more than contempt.

“I’ve seen your attempts to fight in _that_ body.  Don’t even bother.”

“Fighting is not what needs doing right now,” Zash replies.  “Were the Rakghoul plague an ordinary disease I would probably laugh along with you—“

“Please, no, I don’t need any more unpleasantness today.”

“Pay attention!” Zash snaps, and some instinctive part of S’kora straightens.  It was rare for Zash to lose patience with her, but it happened enough that S’kora learned what the appropriate response was.  She forces herself to relax, aware that there is little Zash can do to her now.

Directly, anyway.

She turns away again, getting a lamp out of her pack, when someone’s hand closes around her wrist.  S’kora barely restrains herself from reacting out of reflex, slowly looking back, half-convinced that her eyes would burn whoever stood there.

“She might have a point,” Andronikos says quietly.  He doesn’t look the least bit intimidated.

The worst part is that he’s right – and she knows it.

S’kora folds her arms and plants her feet shoulder width apart, facing Zash.  “If you have concerns, name them.”

Zash doesn’t waste time.  “The Rakghoul virus was Sith-engineered.  There’s a reason why even the Jedi stationed here must be wary of it, and that reason is that it is insidious for even the strongest of Force-users.  At present, I’d say you are in very real danger of becoming one of the monsters.”

“How long?”

“I would estimate two days.  Perhaps longer, considering your penchant for surviving far more than anyone should be capable of.  Who knows?  It is possible that you’ll be able to ride it out.”

S’kora resists the urge to look at the gash again.

“Alternatively, you could draw on Ergast and Andru’s power to purge yourself of the virus.”

A wave of cold sweeps over S’kora.  She feels both spirits stir at the mention of their names, and intrigue that is not her own briefly overtakes her thoughts.  She visualizes grabbing them both by the throats and holding them there.

“That’s not an option,” she says.

“This is no time to be stubborn to the point of death,” Zash snaps.

S’kora smirks.  “I’ve never died.”

Ergast laughs.  S’kora shoves him back into the recesses of her mind.

“Do not be picky, Apprentice,” Zash says, more calmly now.  “What did you acquire their power for, if not to use it?”

S’kora doesn’t take her eyes off of Zash for even a moment, but she gives a short nod.  She senses more than hears Andronikos shifting his feet, and tells him that he should move back.  Just in case.

She refuses to kneel, even if it will more than likely aid in her concentration.  Instead, she closes her eyes, and draws up both spirits.  They already know what to look for, but they struggle against her demand like angry Manka cats.

The vertigo— and she’s never sure if it’s physical or mental, or both— hits her a moment later, like she’s falling through both of their memories at once.  She resists the urge to vomit as their three minds join together briefly, searching her bloodstream for the virus all while enduring a storm of recollections and emotions.  The virus isn’t hard to find, latching onto her cells and disfiguring them as it is.  It’s even easier to eradicate.

When she opens her eyes, she doesn’t quite manage to stop her fool mouth from saying “Who are you?” to Zash.

The ground rushes up to meet her only a moment later.

* * *

 

Weakness is a mistake in the Empire.

Showing mercy is one, supposedly.  S’kora finds ways to nullify that, usually by threatening whoever thinks of her as weak.  This, however… this is not so easy to fix.

Her stomach heaves, but she holds herself rigid until the wave of nausea recedes.  She sits up slowly and is pleased to find that her body doesn’t have an adverse reaction to that. 

Andronikos is leaning against the wall nearby.  He looks relieved when she makes eye contact with him.

“Thought you might not remember me,” he says.  His tone is joking, but S’kora can hear the undercurrent of worry there.

“How could I ever forget you?” she replies.

Khem is standing only a few feet away— and it _is_ Khem, S’kora is relieved to find. 

“Good,” she says.  “Now we may actually stand a chance in combat.  Until we’re clear of the Rakghouls, Zash ought to keep her nose out of our business.”

“Sounds like a fantastic idea,” Andronikos agrees.  His voice is hard.

S’kora grabs her saberstaff, the hilt warm in her palm, and moves out.

* * *

 

“We need to talk.”

S’kora has never expected to be the one to say those words to Zash – and yet here she is.  Zash is scanning through some texts in the conference room, looking for more clues on where to find the next ghost.  Ashara is settled into the crew quarters, already asleep (somehow).  S’kora envies her that.

Zash deliberately places the text on the table.  “I was under the impression that I was the last person you wished to speak to.”

“This isn’t about me,” S’kora explains.  “This is about how _you_ are going to have absolutely nothing to do with Ashara’s instruction.”

If Zash still possessed a human body, S’kora suspects that she would be raising an eyebrow right now.  “I believe that, of the two of us, I have the majority of experience in being a teacher.”

“I have to start somewhere, don’t I?  And that’s hardly the point.”  S’kora leans forward, pressing both palms into the table.  “The point is that Ashara Zavros will not, under any circumstances, have to endure half of the things that I endured: at the hands of slavers, at the hands of _you_ , at the hands of Thanaton—“

“At the hands of your mother?”

S’kora clenches her hands into fists.  “Do _not_ ,” she hisses.  She ignores the (now three) ghosts in her mind clamoring for Zash’s destruction.

“I daresay everyone on this ship knows about your nightmares, crying out for her to stop—“

S’kora has Zash pinned against the wall a moment later, no matter the latter’s size.  She increases the pressure on Zash’s throat, her rage nearly blinding her.  She regains control of herself a moment later, letting the darkness flow through her but not allowing it to dominate her.

“The point _I_ am trying to make,” Zash says, “is that hiding your weakness from me is foolish.  I know.  Of course I know.”

S’kora ignores that.  “The galaxy can do what it likes to me, as far as I’m concerned.  But Ashara is off-limits.  If I see you interact with her in any capacity besides small-talk, I will _end_ you.”

“I’ve never seen this kind of protective instinct from you, Apprentice.  Where did that come from?”

It takes all of the willpower that S’kora has to turn and walk out of the room.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The relationship between S'kora and Zash became a lot messier and more complicated than I thought it would. For obvious reasons, Zash's attempted betrayal didn't help with S'kora's paranoia, but she still knows S'kora a lot better than S'kora would like. 
> 
> 2\. The fic title probably doesn't seem to fit with what you imagined, but (though it wasn't obvious) S'kora reached a turning point by the end of the fic. Meeting Ashara has a massive impact on her, as will be seen in later installments.
> 
> Those are all the notes for now. Also, I've made a sideblog dedicated specifically to SWTOR-related content. If you have any questions, or are just curious, take a look [here](http://jaennsisters.tumblr.com).


End file.
